Springhill Stories

A blog is always something personal and this article is even more so. This time I take you to the small garden of my parents. This is the place where I grew up and also the place where I developed my love for plants. When I was a teenager I had my own little dedicated part of the garden, where I could do my thing. In those days my parents went more for a practical garden, but since they started working for the local green service the garden definitely got an upgrade. The back garden is not more than about 150m2, but unlike all the neighbors my parents opened up the garden to the back, where there is a large abandoned orchard. This gives the garden a much larger feel and on top of that a beautiful background. The abandoned orchard is a real attraction pole for many kinds of birds and wildlife and my parents have a front row seat to watch it all.

The main feature in the garden is the flower bed in the back. By trial-and-error they managed to create a flower bed that is flowering from spring to autumn. They work with a mix of perennials and annuals in a range of different colors. The pictures  I took are made second half of June. On the pictures you will surely recognize the bright yellow loosestrife, dark pink lupins and the whirling butterfly. In the back hydrangea Annabelle bring is some volume. Further in bloom that period are the foxgloves, summer lily and the purple salvia. The flower bed also contains some beautiful blue delphiniums, two kinds of aster, fall blooming anemones and so much more species.

One of the remains of when I was still living with my parents is the small pond I created. It’s still there and attracts a whole bunch of animals. Tits and Robins like to come and take a bath, frogs made it their home and breeding ground and even salamanders feel at home in this small pool. My parents not only used the garden to rewind, they also grow some veggies here. This year the green beans got a bit in trouble with the snails, but I think it worked out in the end. Zucchini is grown in pots in the small side terrace and already gave a good harvest. My mum’s favorite things to grow are roquette and small colored carrots. She does this on a raised garden bed and you can take this quite literally, as it’s about 1m20 above ground. The reason ? Carrot flies can not fly higher than one meter above ground and this way the carrots are always safe. Of course the carrots can not grow as big as in full ground, but the smaller they are the more packed with taste.

It’s nice to see my parents try new things in the garden and keep it organic. Behind the garden my dad is growing willow to use the branches to make small fences.They also created a pile of sticks for the small rodents, the bee hotel hosts the mason bee and the small birdhouse is the favorite nest place for tits. I really admire how mum and dad created so much variety on such a little space. Hope you enjoyed to have a little sneak peek into their garden.